A 23-year-old rural Tonganoxie man who suffered a self-inflicted accidental gunshot wound in early May has been released from an area hospital.

An official at Kansas University Hospital in Kansas City, Kan., said Derek J. Erwin was released last week.

Erwin had been hospitalized since the accident, on May 4.

Erwin apparently had drunk several beers with his girlfriend at his home about 3 1/2 miles east of Tonganoxie. As she took a shower, he went outside, reports said. Two other residents of the home heard three gunshots, but they weren’t alarmed, reports said, because the man often fired his .45-caliber handgun in the backyard at night.

Erwin went into the house, suffering from a gunshot wound below his chin that exited at the top of his forehead, reports said. Officers said he told the responding deputy that he had accidentally shot himself.